


It Wasn't Meaningless

by LilacNoctua



Category: Naruto
Genre: Accidental Sleepover, Angst, Camping, Chuunin Exams, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Hanging Out, Late at Night, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, No Plot/Plotless, One Shot Collection, Pre-Chuunin Exams, Thunderstorms, endless bickering, insults are definitely a healthy way to express affection, rivals to friends, speculation about Kakashi's face, struggling to make friends, unsupervised grocery shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23157481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilacNoctua/pseuds/LilacNoctua
Summary: The songs of crickets and the rustling of the wind through the leaves filled the silence between them. The charred remains of a log crumbled into the last glowing embers of their campfire, sending sparks dancing into the air.“Hey. Sasuke?”“Yeah?”“You know how I’ve got Iruka-sensei. . . I’m just wondering, have you got anyone like that?” Naruto asked tentatively.Sasuke scoffed and sat up a little straighter. “I don’t need anyone.”“Well,” Naruto grinned at him. “You’ve always got us.”“Oh great,” Sasuke sneered, though there was very little real malice in it. “Just what I always wanted, a bunch of losers sticking their ugly noses into my life.”Look, all I wanted was for Naruto and Sasuke's relationship to get a bit more onscreen development before Sasuke went completely off the rails.  So, here's a series of one shots of them just trying to figure out how to be friends, and what that means, even though they're not great at it.
Relationships: Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 23
Kudos: 63





	1. A Night Like Any Other

It seemed to be a quiet evening like any other in Konoha. A gentle breeze swept down lantern lit streets, past the warm glow of Ichiraku Ramen and the darkened windows of the Yamanaka Flower Shop. As the sun finally disappeared below the horizon, birds came to roost upon the four stone heads carved into the cliff face, and Academy students wished one another goodnight as they made their way home from the training fields.

And yet this was not quite a night like any other. On this particular night, in a one room apartment within a rundown old building, something was taking place that happened so rarely that its last occurrence had slipped completely from memory.

Naruto Uzumaki was washing the dishes.

He didn’t own many dishes, preferring instead to eat from packages and take out containers, and to drink milk directly out of the carton. But he had come home from his mission to the Land of Waves, taken his shoes off and immediately stepped on a pair of broken chopsticks. Then he had not been able to find a single clean cup to make tea. So he was washing the dishes while muttering furiously to himself as he scrubbed at dried-on gunk, and trying desperately to ignore the voice in the back of his head (which sounded suspiciously like Iruka-sensei) telling him this would have been much easier if he had washed the dishes right after using them.

Beneath the music of the radio which sat on the windowsill by his bed, he heard another sound; a creaking and scraping which sounded suspiciously like . . . his balcony door opening.

He whipped around so fast that he sloshed dish water down the front of his jacket and came face to face with a shadowy figure silhouetted against the darkening sky beyond the open door. With a cry of alarm, he reached for a kunai and realized he had removed his tool pouch, so he snatched a butter knife out of the sink instead.

“Relax, you loser,” the shadow hissed. “It’s me.”

“Gahh! Dammit, Sasuke! What do you think you’re doing creeping into people’s houses like that?” Naruto shrieked, turning back to the sink and sloshing more water onto his front.

“Did I scare you or something?” Sasuke taunted.

“N-no, of course not! But you could really get hurt sneaking up on people like that. What if I had had a weapon?”

Sasuke ignored him and surveyed the room critically, wrinkling his nose. “You live here?” 

“Of course I live here!” Naruto exclaimed. “Nice, huh?”

Sasuke snorted contemptuously, toed off his shoes, and grabbed a magazine which had been haphazardly discarded on the floor. He flopped onto Naruto’s bed and began leafing through the pages. Naruto finished washing the last few dishes, all the while shooting increasingly alarmed and confused looks over his shoulder at his teammate.

“Hey, uh Sasuke,” Naruto began cautiously. “I’m not trying to be rude or anything, but. . .um, why are you here?”

“I was bored,” Sasuke said casually, without looking up from his magazine.

“Oh,” Naruto said, dumbfounded. Since when did Sasuke seek out Naruto when he was bored? Since when did anyone, for that matter, go out of their way to spend more time with him than was strictly necessary? “Uh, okay. If you’re bored, you can always hang out here, I guess.”

He looked around the small room, completely unsure what to do with himself or how he was expected to behave. He realized that other than his tiny, battered kitchen table, there was really no where else in the apartment for him to sit, so he grabbed a comic book off his nightstand and sat at the opposite end of the bed against the footboard, careful not to touch Sasuke. 

They sat in silence for a while until something occurred to Naruto.

“Hey, Sasuke, where do you even live?” he asked.

“My house,” Sasuke replied unhelpfully.

“I know that, asshole.” Naruto retorted. “I mean where in the village?”

“Oh,” Sasuke still did not look up from the magazine. “The Uchiha compound.”

Naruto thought of the crumbling, derelict block of the village which everyone carefully avoided and he laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous, no one lives there.”

“No. No one but me,” Sasuke replied, his voice completely flat.

“Oh,” said Naruto. “ _ Oh. _ ”

Sasuke rolled his eyes without glancing away from his reading.

“Well, no wonder you were bored,” Naruto babbled, trying desperately to smooth over his misstep. “Alone all by yourself in a big, empty, spooky place like that. Ha! Sometimes even I get bored too, here alone by myself. Of course you can hang out here any time you get bored, and I bet Sakura and Kakashi would be fine with you hanging out with them too, you know, if you’re bored.”

Sasuke finally lowered his magazine to regard Naruto coolly over the top edge of the pages. “You really think I’m just going to show up at Sakura’s house alone after dark and ask her to hang out?”

“Oh yeah,” Naruto guffawed. “I guess she might kind of take that the wrong way.”

“You think?” Sasuke snickered. “Also, I’m not about to just go dropping in on our sensei unannounced. That’s kind of weird.”

“He drops in unannounced all the time.” Naruto protested. “He keeps climbing through the kitchen window and forcing me to eat fruit and stuff.”

“Oh, that,” Sasuke agreed. “Glad I’m not the only one. A talking pug once showed up in my house in the middle of the night to lecture me on the importance of a good night’s sleep.” 

“A pug?!” Naruto exclaimed. 

“Yeah, now imagine my reaction. . .”

They both laughed and then found themselves smiling at each other. They each scowled and looked away quickly. For a long while, the awkward silence was disrupted only by the sound of the radio playing a sad love song.

“This music is so lame,” Sasuke complained suddenly. “Who even listens to this stuff?”

“I dunno, girls probably,” Naruto replied. “Change it if you want.”

Sasuke fiddled with the dial, and settled on a station playing loud rock music heavy on guitars and drums.

“The only reason I asked earlier, about where you lived,” Naruto said hesitantly. “Is because I figured you must have an apartment like this because of the Leaf Village Orphan Trust.”

“No, stupid. The Orphan Trust is only for children whose parents are killed on a mission assigned by the Hokage, or in defense of the Village.” Sasuke sneered. “My family were murdered in their own homes by a Leaf shinobi, and a member of the ANBU Black Ops at that. I don’t qualify for the Trust.” With that he snapped the magazine back up in front of his face again.

Naruto opened and shut his mouth a few times in bewilderment and then spluttered, “But that’s ridiculous! You’re still an orphan! How do they expect you to eat? When I’m Hokage I’ll make sure all the orphans in the Village are taken care of equally! Believe it!”

Behind the magazine, Sasuke made a wordless noise of contempt.

They lapsed into uneasy silence again. Inside, Naruto was in turmoil. It was just like Sasuke, so self absorbed and cocky, to just let himself into Naruto’s apartment and then lie down on his bed and start reading his magazines like he lived there. And then to be so rude every time Naruto tried to make conversation. It wasn’t like he had invited him over or anything. Maybe everyone else in the village worshiped Sasuke and would let him get away with this sort of thing, but not him, not Naruto. He had half a mind to throw him right back out the door and slam it in his face, to use his fists to teach Sasuke a lesson in good manners.

On the other hand, Sasuke was here, in his apartment, just. . . hanging out. And by his own choice too, not because Kakashi-sensei was forcing them to spend time together. He wasn’t used to this, and he realized with a jolt that he desperately wanted it to continue. He and Sasuke had always been outsiders in their own ways. Sasuke had constantly been invited to spend time with the other children at the Academy, they had gone out of their way to include him, and he had always refused. Naruto on the other hand, had been avoided and deliberately excluded, even by the adults. Sure, the other boys would tolerate him sometimes if he happened to be around. They would all skip class and idle the time away in the practice hall, but it was different. It wasn’t like this. He had never had this. He needed this tenuous peace between himself and Sasuke to continue, to grow into something else. But he didn’t know how to make that happen.

“You’re staring at me,” Sasuke complained, flipping a page.

“Oh! Sorry!” Naruto looked away hastily. “Maybe we should do something?” He suggested.

“What is there to do?” Sasuke wondered. “It’s Tuesday night. Everyone is at home with their families, having dinner or going to bed early or whatever it is people do.”

“I dunno. We could go for a walk, or get some training in, or go see what Sakura’s up to?” Naruto offered.

“Ugh, fine. I have an idea,” Sasuke grumbled, tossing his magazine aside. “You know that chakra control thing we were practicing on the mission? Let’s have a contest, see which one of us is really the best at it.”

“Now you’re talking!” Naruto shouted, leaping off the bed. 

“Alright. We’ll stick ourselves to the ceiling. Whoever stays up the longest wins.”

“If you lose, you have to buy me lunch tomorrow!” Naruto yelled, leaping at the ceiling.

“Okay, fine, sure,” Sasuke sighed, landing beside Naruto on the ceiling with considerably more grace.

“I’m gonna get a nice big bowl of ramen, with barbeque pork,” Naruto informed him gleefully.

“You loser. That really is all you think about, isn’t it?” Sasuke scoffed.

“Better than whatever you think about,” Naruto grumbled.

They were silent for a while, both fidgeting about on the ceiling while the radio below them played an advertisement for a tea house. Naruto edged closer to Sasuke and ever so carefully lifted his foot away from the ceiling and swung it out to nudge Sasuke’s ankle. Sasuke reflexively jerked his leg away and wobbled dangerously. 

“No fair, you can’t kick me!” he complained.

“You never said that,” Naruto protested, nudging him with his foot again.

“Well I’m saying it now!” Sasuke growled, shoving at Naruto’s shoulder. His upper body swung backwards but his feet remained in contact with the ceiling.

“Hey!” Naruto shoved back.

“Cut it out, moron! Stay over there!” Sasuke kicked him in the knee.

“Yeah well, you stay over there!”

“Fine!” 

They each retreated a pace or two across the ceiling.

Struck by an idea, Naruto lowered (or rather, raised) his backside to the ceiling and refocused his chakra. 

“Hey, Sasuke! Check this out!” He let all of his limbs droop towards the floor, held in place against the ceiling only by the seat of his pants.

Sasuke made a soft huffing sound, suspiciously close to laughter. “I can do better than that,” he boasted. He leaned down (or rather, up) to place the top of his head on the ceiling and let go with his feet, so that he was suspended from the ceiling by the top of his head.

Naruto let out a shriek of laughter, and Sasuke - faced with Naruto who was hanging from the ceiling by his butt, looking back at Sasuke from between his own knees and laughing himself silly - began to laugh as well.

They laughed until their chakra control gave out and they fell together in a heap on the floor, and then began laughing all over again. Naruto felt like something was inflating inside his chest, pushing against the inside of his ribs, threatening to burst.

There came a knock at the door.

“It’s open,” Naruto called out, still laughing as he tried to free his leg which was trapped under Sasuke’s back.

Naruto’s downstairs neighbour burst into the room. He was a perpetually tired looking chunin in his early twenties whom Naruto had long ago decided had no sense of humour.

“For fuck’s sake, Naruto,” he shouted. “It’s been a long day, I’ve just come back from a really tiring mission and I just want to watch my show, have a drink, and enjoy some goddamn peace and quiet until I fall asleep on the couch. Is that really too much to ask? Just what the fuck is going on up here? Oh . . . Sasuke Uchiha, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were here.” 

Naruto ground his teeth. Just like always, everyone treated him like dirt and Sasuke could do no wrong. Even when they were doing the exact same thing.

“Sasuke started it,” Naruto insisted.

“I did not!” Sasuke punched him.

“Did so!” Naruto punched back.

“Shut up!” His neighbour howled, slamming the door and storming out into the hall as the scuffle continued.

“You know,” Sasuke was panting slightly, Naruto’s head locked under his arm. “He’s right, it is getting a bit late.”

“Oh?” Naruto growled, digging his elbow into Sasuke’s ribs.

“I should be going.”

“Yeah, okay then.”

They disentangled themselves and stood awkwardly for a minute. 

“You can always come by if you get bored, you know,” Naruto offered.

“Yeah, whatever. See you tomorrow,” Sasuke waved over his shoulder as he stepped out onto the balcony and leapt away into the night.

Naruto fell onto his bed fully clothed, smiling even as he fell asleep.


	2. Grocery Run

“I can’t believe I got stuck on grocery duty with you,” Sasuke whined, leaning against his elbows on the push bar of the grocery cart and kicking off against the floor to propel the cart forward.

“Look, pal. This isn’t exactly my idea of a good time either,” Naruto pouted at him from his perch at the end of the cart and swatted a package of biscuits off of the shelf as they passed. “Let’s just make this quick.”

“Agreed. What’s next on the list?”

“Sasuke, you have the list.”

“I do not. Sensei gave you the list.”

“He didn’t. I don’t have it.”

“Are you kidding me? How are you this much of a fuck-up?” Sasuke planted both feet on the floor and gave the cart a vicious shove, nearly dislodging Naruto.

“Look, don’t get all bitchy with me just because you forgot the list!” Naruto growled.

“I didn’t  _ forget  _ the list. I remember the list perfectly,” Sasuke huffed, gesturing at his eye. “But the point is that you had the list and you lost it.”

Naruto spluttered. “Well if you remember everything on the list, why are you arguing with me about who has it? It’s in your stupid head!” He reached across the cart to knock on the top of Sasuke’s skull.

“Don’t touch me, you freak.” Sasuke swatted at his hand. “Okay fine, the next thing we need is noodles.”

“Yeah!” Naruto cheered.

Sasuke muttered something under his breath that sounded a bit like  _ absolutely hopeless,  _ then set one foot back on the bottom rail of the cart and began scooting it forward again with the other.

“You know, if you didn’t eat like a pig, we wouldn’t need all this,” Sasuke sniped as Naruto held his arm out to knock several packets of noodles into the cart.

“Don’t be silly,” Naruto protested. “We’ve got to stake this place out for like a week, Sakura said. We’ve gotta have food.”

Sasuke heaved a put-upon sigh. “This is all your fault though. If you hadn’t pissed off Kakashi-sensei, we’d be setting traps and doing perimeter sweeps right now. You know, like real ninja. Not grocery shopping like a couple of housewives.”

“Everyone has to eat, Sasuke.” Naruto scowled. “Besides, what do you mean,  _ I _ pissed him off? You were the one who set the drapes on fire.”

“I wouldn’t have set the drapes on fire, if you hadn’t ducked!” Sasuke snapped.

“Then my head would have been on fire!” Naruto yelped.

“Ah, finally you’re catching on.”

Naruto threw a tin of tuna at him. Sasuke caught it casually and dropped it into the cart.

“Where do you think we’d find zucchini?” Sasuke asked.

“Beats me. What the hell is zucchini?” 

“How should I know? The lists said zucchini on it.”

“Maybe it’s like, some kind of seasoning?” Naruto guessed.

“I thought it was some kind of weird foreign food,” Sasuke shrugged.

“A foreign spice then? Maybe Sakura is getting adventurous in her cooking again?”

“Ugh, spare me.” Sasuke groaned. “It’s bad enough already.”

“Hey, Sasuke,” Naruto chuckled. “Who’s a worse cook? Me or Sakura?”

Sasuke smirked. “If you held a kunai to my throat and told me I had to choose your food or Sakura’s to eat for the rest of my life, I’d take the kunai and slit my throat myself.

Naruto guffawed loudly, knocking a few bags of chips into the cart. “I can at least boil water.”

“No kidding,” Sasuke agreed. “Last week when she made that tea that smelled like burnt hair, I had to use a jutsu to create a diversion so I could toss it into the bushes.”

“Wish I had thought of that,” Naruto grumbled. “I made a shadow clone drink it.”

Sasuke smirked at him across the grocery cart. “If your clone drinks it, don’t you still taste it later when you dispel the clone?”

Naruto grimaced. “Yeah, yeah I do.”

“Loser,” Sasuke taunted.

“Shut up. What else do we need?” 

“Just some mangoes and the damn zucchini. What in the hell is a zucchini?” Sasuke kicked the cart towards the produce section.

“Wanna just not get it and say they were sold out?” Naruto suggested.

“Obviously.”

Sasuke steered the cart with his foot as Naruto tossed mangoes at him. He caught them all deftly and placed them on top of a package of noodles where they wouldn’t get squashed.

“Naruto, please tell me you at least remembered to bring the money.”

“What do you think I’m an idiot or something?” Naruto laughed. “Got it right-”

He patted his pocket then froze, a look of horror dawning on his face. He nearly toppled off the end of the cart as he frantically began searching all of his pockets.

Sasuke huffed out a tiny laugh as he pulled a bulging frog shaped wallet out of his pocket. He tossed it in the air and caught it several times before Naruto noticed.

“Sasuke!” he screeched. “How did you get that? Give it back!”

“You really are a loser,” Sasuke taunted. “I thought for sure you would notice when I lifted this out of your pocket. It’s enormous.”

He threw the wallet at Naruto who tried to catch it and missed. It hit him squarely between the eyes and he toppled backwards off the cart. Sasuke doubled over laughing.

“Get up, idiot,” he nudged Naruto with one wheel of the cart as he wiped tears from his eyes. “Let’s get out of here.”

Naruto scrambled back onto his perch and began counting the money Kakashi had given him as Sasuke propelled them towards the check out line. 

“Oh hey,” Naruto said. “Here’s where I put the list.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“This means I was right though. Since you had the wallet the whole time, you had the list the whole time too,” Naruto pointed out. 

Sasuke dropped his forehead onto the push bar of the grocery cart. Because he was exasperated, not because he was smiling. He was the last of the Uchiha, an avenger; Naruto’s ridiculous antics couldn’t make him smile.

Well, maybe just a little bit.


	3. Make Yourself At Home

"You wouldn't believe what I had to deal with today," Sasuke griped as he breezed through the balcony door, causing Naruto to leap out of his chair and bite his own tongue.

"Sasuke! Dammit!" 

Sasuke snickered. "Aw, did I scare poor little Naruto again?"

"I'll give you something to be scared about in a minute," Naruto growled. 

Sasuke arched an eyebrow and smirked. "Do you want me to go or do you want me to tell you about what just happened?"

"Oh, yeah, go ahead. I bet I've got a better one." Naruto sat back down and picked up his chopsticks. He paused. “Did you eat yet? I can make another one for you.”

Sasuke hesitated for a moment before saying, “No, I haven’t.”

“No problem,” Naruto opened a second packet of instant ramen and poured water from a battered kettle. “So what’s going on?”

“I was attacked in the forest this afternoon, by a ninja from Amegakure,” Sasuke explained. 

“No way!” Naruto yelped. “I wonder if mine was from there too.”

“ _ Yours? _ ”

“Yeah! Some creep kidnapped Moegi and I had to chase him down and rescue her. He was demanding the First Hokage’s Scroll of Sealing in exchange for her life!”

“Who’s Moegi?” Sasuke frowned.

“She’s a friend of Konohamaru,” Naruto explained around a mouthful of noodles.

“Who - wait, no, I don’t actually care.” Sasuke took a bite of his food and chewed speculatively. “I wonder if they were connected. Mine didn’t ask for anything, or say much of anything really.”

“Bet he gave you a good beating, huh?” Naruto taunted.

“No, idiot. Do you see a scratch on me?” Sasuke sneered. “Anyway, when I went to report it to the Hokage, he just laughed and said ‘Good.’”

“That is weird,” Naruto agreed. He paused for a moment. “Hey, why are you here, anyway?”

Sasuke tried to slurp his noodles with as much dignity as possible. “I was bored.”

“Oh, yeah alright,” Naruto grumbled. This had happened on three other occasions in the weeks since they had returned from the Land of Waves. All day long, all Sasuke did was insult him, wind him up, make him look bad in front of everyone - and especially in front of Sakura. Then, he would show up in Naruto’s apartment, well after dark, uninvited and unannounced. He wasn’t usually this talkative, seeming to prefer reading Naruto’s magazines and comics while lounging about in complete silence. But he was disturbingly civil, almost nice - or at least, as nice as Sasuke was capable of being. 

This was the fourth time now that this had happened and it was beginning to wear on Naruto’s nerves. He felt like he should be more indignant, that he should tell Sasuke to get lost, to leave him alone, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he had begun checking to make sure his balcony door was unlocked at nightfall. He was even making an effort to mind his manners so that the weird truce which seemed to only exist in his apartment at night wouldn’t be broken.

“So, back to these intruders,” Sasuke said, setting his empty bowl back on the table. His thought was cut short by a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Naruto called. 

“Hey, Naruto. My mom made a lot of extra food so I brought you some - oh!” Sakura had come through the door already talking and pulled up short at the sight of Sasuke sitting with his elbows propped on Naruto’s kitchen table. She fumbled and nearly dropped the container she was carrying. “Sasuke! Um, what are you doing here?”

Sasuke smirked. “Naruto said he needed a tutor to help him work on the basics of ninjutsu.”

“I DID NOT!!” Naruto shrieked, nearly toppling out of his chair. “Sakura, he’s lying!”

“That’s  _ so  _ nice of you, Sasuke! You know Naruto needs all the help he can get.” Sakura fluttered her eyelashes.

“I didn’t - ! He’s not - ! GAAHHHH!!!” Naruto shouted.

“Quiet, Naruto. Your downstairs neighbour caught me in the hall and told me to tell you that you’ve been too loud all evening.” Sakura scolded. “Anyways, Sasuke, I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to bring some food to you as well, but I realized I don’t actually know where you live.”

“He lives in -” Naruto began to say but interrupted himself with a yelp as Sasuke kicked him hard under the table and shot him a particularly venomous glare.

“So, Sakura,” Sasuke said slyly. “Do you visit Naruto often?”

“Oh, no! Nothing like that! Really!” Sakura’s face had begun to turn bright red. “I only come by when my mom sends him food.”

“Ah, so we’re both here for charity then,” Sasuke said, while Naruto spluttered angrily.

“Can I hang out with you guys for a while?” Sakura asked abruptly. “It’s been a really weird day.”

“Did you get attacked by a Rain ninja as well?” Sasuke asked, moving to sit on the kitchen counter behind Naruto so Sakura could have his chair.

“ _ As well _ ?” Sakura gasped. “You mean you were attacked, too? By the same ninja?”

“Or a similar one.” Sasuke nodded. “Naruto, too.”

“Did yours say anything to you?” Naruto asked.

“He told me not to take the Chunin Exam. He said I couldn’t handle it.” Sakura groaned.

“Yours gave you advice?” Naruto asked incredulously. “You must have gotten the soft one in the group.”

“Well, there was more to it than that,” Sakura said, turning red in the face.

“Well?” Sasuke demanded when she didn’t continue speaking.

“He used a genjutsu,” Sakura whispered. “An illusion of Sasuke who asked me to walk out to the training field. He told me he was worried about me and that I wouldn’t survive the Chunin Exam, so I shouldn’t do it. Then the Rain ninja attacked with kunai and killed the fake Sasuke. I pretended to cry over the body.”

“Only pretended to?” Naruto snickered.

“Well, yes. It was an obvious genjutsu. I had seen right through it from the start,” Sakura sniffed. “It has left me kind of rattled, though. It was disturbing. A little bit too much like what happened before. . .”

Naruto nodded sympathetically, remembering Sasuke’s lifeless body on the bridge, bristling with senbon. “So then what did you do?”

“I tried to fight him, but he disappeared. I ran to the gate to tell Kotetsu and Izumo that we were under attack and they both just laughed. They told me it was already under control.”

“Hmmm,” Sasuke banged his heels against the cupboards as he considered. “Three similar attackers target our team at the same time. Mine says nothing, Naruto’s is after a scroll and kidnaps a little friend of his, Sakura’s uses a genjutsu to warn her away from the Chunin Exams. The authorities seem to already know about it. None of them did any serious harm to us, or the one hostage. In fact, it sounds like they barely even tried to. More like they were trying to scare us? Or looking for a certain reaction. I bet it has to do with the Chunin Exam.”

“I’m thinking it was Kakashi in disguise,” Sakura agreed. “Like he’s testing us. Maybe it would make him look bad if we failed the exam, since he recommended us.”

“Don’t be silly,” Naruto protested. “We would have known if it was Kakashi-sensei.”

“Would we though?” Sakura wondered. “Think about it, we don’t even really know what he looks like.”

Naruto goggled at her. “I had never thought about that before.”

“You absolute idiot,” Sasuke said scathingly. “Besides, he can cast powerful genjutsu. He has the sharingan, remember.”

“Ohhh, we’ll get him back for this,” Naruto declared.

“Yeah! He thinks he can mess with us??” Sakura slammed her fist down on the table.

“Hey! Do you know where we can get a bucket of snow? I have an idea,” Naruto said.

“From the ice machine in the corner store,” Sasuke sounded exasperated. “Now, shut it. The Chunin Exams are more important than pranking our sensei. And we need to be on our guard. Between this and those Sand creeps, we’ve got to watch ourselves. It looks like the competition will begin before the actual exams do.”

“I bet you they’ll purposely make it difficult to get to the registration room on time,” Sakura said.

Sasuke nodded. “That’s a good start.”

The three of them speculated about the Chunin Exams until it had grown quite late and Sakura remembered that her mother would probably be worrying about her. As she rushed out the door, Sasuke hopped down from his perch on the kitchen counter. Naruto expected him to leave as well, but instead he crossed to Naruto’s bed, flopped down on it, and began sharpening his shuriken. As he had done each time he found himself in this situation, Naruto went to sit across from him, against the footboard of his bed, and read a comic book. He got caught up in a particularly good storyline about a ninja seeking to save his lady love from a group of rogue ninja kidnappers (and imagining himself as the hero of this particular tale, with Sakura as the damsel in distress), that he did not notice when the rasp of the whetstone fell silent. He did, however, notice when a soft snore broke the silence in the apartment.

Naruto’s head snapped up and he panicked momentarily. Sasuke had fallen asleep on his bed. What should he do? Should he wake him, tell him it was time to head home?

He eased off the bed and tiptoed around to kneel by Sasuke’s head. He was lying flat on his back, one arm resting on the pillow above his head and his face turned slightly towards the door. His mouth had gone slack and his eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks. For once, the haughty expression was absent from his face. He looked peaceful, childlike. Naruto felt a strange squeezing sensation in his chest that made it difficult to breathe. 

_ Great,  _ he thought,  _ now I’ll have to go see a doctor later on top of everything else. _

He raised his hand tentatively towards his teammate’s shoulder but then let it fall back into his lap. He could not bring himself to wake him. He stood and backed away from the bed, as though putting distance between himself and something dangerous. His instinct was to go find a blanket to drape over Sasuke so he wouldn’t get cold, to untie his headband so it wouldn’t leave marks on his forehead by morning (he had made that mistake himself once). That's what friends did for one another, wasn’t it?

The panic began to set in again. It was too much; he and Sasuke were barely friends, they could hardly work together as teammates. Naruto wasn’t sure what they were. And if Sasuke were to wake up to find Naruto tucking him into bed, well, it didn’t bear thinking about. No, better to just leave him as he was.

Naruto found his sleeping bag in the back of his closet and folded up his jacket to use as a pillow. He turned out the light and laid down on the floor beside the bed.

“Good night, Sasuke,” he whispered into the darkness. 

. . .

Morning dawned over Konoha. Naruto’s alarm clock was not set to go off for another hour. He was awoken by a pair of feet stepping on him.

He screamed.

Sasuke screamed, and leapt back onto the bed, knocking the lamp off the bedside table as he went. 

“What the hell, Naruto?” Sasuke demanded, standing on the mattress with his back pressed to the wall.

“What the hell, yourself?!” Naruto squawked, rubbing his sore ribs as he sat up. “What do you have to step on me for?”

“Why are you laying on the floor??” 

“You fell asleep in my bed!”

Sasuke looked around the room wildly, seeming to finally realize where he was. “Why in the hell didn’t you wake me up, you loser?”

“Not my job!” Naruto shouted. “I’m not your butler.”

“So you just decided to sleep on the floor?” Sasuke shrieked.

“I was tired!”

Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose and took a few deep breaths. “You are such a loser, it is  _ unbelievable. _ ”

“Fine! Fine! Next time, I’ll just toss you out the window!”

“Tch! I’d like to see you try.”

“Is that a dare?!”

Naruto’s downstairs neighbour stormed through the door in his pajamas without even bothering to knock.

“It is five o’clock in the morning,” he hissed, eyes bulging in their sockets. “I only got home from my mission two hours ago. I don’t care what the fuck your problem is, shut the fuck up.” He slammed out of the room again.

“Where’s your bathroom?” Sasuke grumbled, stepping off the bed.

“The door that isn’t the closet.”

Sasuke paused beside Naruto, grabbed him by the front of his t-shirt and hauled him roughly to his feet.

“We are never speaking about this again,” he snarled.

“Fine by me. I don’t see what the big deal is anyway,” Naruto snapped, glowering back at him.

Sasuke stalked away and threw the bathroom door open. He paused and looked back at Naruto, his expression shifting rapidly into something almost conciliatory. “I’ll buy us some breakfast on the way to the training grounds.”


	4. On Watch

_ Thwack. . . thwack. . . thwack. . . _

Night watch was the most boring part of any mission, and Naruto had been unlucky enough to draw the first watch.

_ Thwack. . . thwack. . . thwack. . .  _

This was the reason he was crouched at the foot of a tree on the edge of the campsite, restless and flinging kunai into a tree trunk on the opposite side of the camp.

_ Thwack. . . thwack. . .  _ \- a hand shot out of one of the bedrolls and grabbed the last kunai in mid air. Sasuke’s disheveled head rose slowly out of the sleeping bag, eyes gleaming like pools of blood in the moonlight. 

Naruto froze.

“Would you like me to kill you, Naruto?” Sasuke whispered. Naruto suppressed a shiver. Sasuke had a particular way of dragging out his name that made it sound like a curse.

“What the hell kind of a question is that?” Naruto squawked, having found his nerve again. “Of course not!”

Sasuke shushed him. “You woke me up.”

“Well, you don’t have to be such a baby about it,” Naruto pouted.

“Ugh, shut up.” Sasuke rolled to his feet and came to sit next to Naruto.

“Hey, what are you doing? Go back to sleep,” Naruto protested.

“I’m awake anyway, and my watch starts soon. You can go to bed early.” Sasuke offered.

“What, and have you tell everyone in the morning that I cut my watch short? I don’t think so, pal.” Naruto grumbled.

“Fine, stay up if you want. I don’t care,” Sasuke shrugged. 

The songs of crickets and the rustling of the wind through the leaves filled the silence between them. The charred remains of a log crumbled into the last glowing embers of their campfire, sending sparks dancing into the air.

“Hey. Sasuke?”

“Yeah?”

“You know how I’ve got Iruka-sensei. . . I’m just wondering, have you got anyone like that?” Naruto asked tentatively.

Sasuke scoffed and sat up a little straighter. “I don’t need anyone.”

“Well,” Naruto grinned at him. “You’ve always got us.”

“Oh great,” Sasuke sneered, though there was very little real malice in it. “Just what I always wanted, a bunch of losers sticking their ugly noses into my life.”

“Speak for yourself,” Naruto scoffed. “Your nose is so ugly it -” He peered closely at Sasuke’s nose in the darkness, looking for inspiration for an insult.

“Nice try,” Sasuke said. “There’s nothing wrong with my face. Yours on the other hand. . .”

“My face is fine!” Naruto squawked.

“If you say so,” Sasuke drawled sceptically.

“Name one thing that’s wrong with my face?” Naruto demanded.

“For starters, the fact that I have to look at it everyday.”

“Oh yeah? Well I don’t exactly like having to look at your face either!” Naruto retorted.

“Oh, please,” Sasuke said contemptuously. “I’m the best looking member of our squad and we both know it.”

“How do you figure?” Naruto squawked indignantly. “It’s obviously Sakura.”

“Don’t be an idiot. It’s me, then Kakashi-sensei, then you and Sakura are probably tied except she might have you beat because she actually appears to be capable of shutting her mouth sometimes.”

Naruto’s jaw fell open in outrage. “C’mon! How could I rank lower than Kakashi-sensei? You’ve never even seen his face!”

Sasuke just shrugged.

“Or have you?” Naruto glared at Sasuke. “If you saw it, you would tell me, right?”

“I dunno, maybe,” Sasuke grinned at him.

“Why you little -” A thought occurred to Naruto and he grabbed Sasuke suddenly by the collar and whispered in his ear. “What if he doesn’t have a face? What if he wears a mask because his face is just  _ gone _ ?” 

“Don’t be stupid,” Sasuke breathed, but shivered visibly.

“Naruto,” A voice whispered from the shadows behind them. The two boys turned to find themselves face to face with their sensei, still very much masked but missing his headband. He clicked a flashlight on under his chin. In the harsh glare of the beam, the sharingan eye gleamed evilly while the other appeared flat black like a river stone. The crevasse of the scar seemed to twist and come alive in the shadows as he grinned. They both shrieked and Naruto all but jumped into Sasuke’s lap.

“Sasuke’s watch begins now. You, Naruto, are going to go to sleep. Now, if you know what’s good for you.” Kakashi whispered.

“Yes, sensei,” Naruto stuttered.

“Get off me,” Sasuke spat, shoving Naruto away as though he hadn’t been gripping his jacket for dear life just moments before.

“How long was he behind us?” Naruto hissed at Sasuke as he retreated towards his bedroll.

“I see everything,” Kakashi said menacingly, gesturing at his eye, as he got back in bed. “I hear everything, too.”

“Okay, sure,” Sasuke muttered. He shot Naruto a threatening look and whispered, “Nice going, loser.”

“See, I heard that too,” Kakashi said.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Naruto whispered to Sasuke.

“Yes it was. If you hadn’t -”

“Naruto. Go. To. Sleep.  _ Now _ .” Kakashi demanded irritably.

“Well, you were the one who -”

“Shut up!” Sakura screeched.

“Okay, okay, geez, sorry,” Naruto crawled into his sleeping bag.

“Now look what you’ve done, Naruto” Sasuke pretended to scold him. “You know how badly Sakura needs her beauty sleep.”

Naruto snorted loudly then began to giggle. Sasuke kicked his foot, but then began to laugh too.

“What was that?!” Sakura leapt out of her sleeping bag.

“Hey! He said it, not me!” Naruto protested, trying to wiggle back out of his sleeping bag to escape his teammate’s wrath.

“You’re the one who laughed!”

“The next person who makes a sound is on laundry duty as soon as we arrive,” Kakashi announced from where he had taken refuge underneath his pillow.

The clearing fell silent immediately. Naruto and Sakura each settled back into their sleeping bags. Sasuke sat back beneath the tree in a patch of moonlight. Hearkening back to their Academy training in wordless communication, Sasuke flashed a hand sign at Naruto that meant  _ Idiot.  _ Naruto made a rude gesture in return which was not part of the sign language but was universally well understood.

“Sasuke, Naruto, I heard that,” Kakashi said, his head still under his pillow. “Laundry duty.”


	5. Startling

Lightning split the night sky outside the cave, so close that every hair on Naruto’s head stood on end and, almost immediately, a deafening crack of thunder shook the stone floor on which he lay.

_ Just a storm,  _ he reminded himself forcefully.  _ Not scary, just startling. _

He peeked out from under his blanket at Kakashi who sat serenely in the mouth of the cave, silhouetted against the shimmering sheet of rain that pummelled down against the mountainside. Kakashi didn’t so much as flinch when the next lightning strike flooded their refuge with a brief flare of blinding light, but Naruto saw the pink blanket that covered Sakura’s huddled form shaking. It crossed his mind to go try to comfort her but he quickly dismissed the idea; if ever there was a sure way to get punched in the nose, that was it.

Besides which, he couldn’t give anyone a reason to think that maybe he was the one who needed comfort in the storm. Sasuke was probably ignoring it just as coolly as Kakashi. Naruto couldn’t let Sasuke make a fool of him again. 

Sasuke. . . where was he anyway? Before, he had been sleeping at the mouth of the cave, near Kakashi, but Naruto hadn’t seen him when the lightning struck.

Lightning flashed again, a magnificent triple fork blazing through the curtain of rain, and Sasuke’s face loomed over Naruto, black eyes very wide in his pale face. He shuffled around in the darkness as Naruto’s teeth chattered in time with the thunder. He felt Sasuke settle onto the ground beside him.

“What are you doing?” Naruto whispered.

“The floor’s getting wet over there,” Sasuke hissed in his ear. “Shut up and let me sleep.”

Another flash of lightning, another peel of thunder. Sasuke inched across the floor until his back was pressed up against Naruto’s. Naruto could feel him shiver through the blankets.

Naruto thought about taunting Sasuke, considered asking loudly if he was cold, but he chose to say nothing, to remain still. He and Sasuke, he had come to realize, were a lot alike, and maybe Sasuke understood him in ways no one else did. He decided that Sasuke was not afraid of the storm, and it would be ridiculous and childish to accuse him of such a thing. He was only startled by it. Just as he was. 

And now, Naruto realized, the storm had grown a little bit less. . . startling.

Perhaps it was beginning to pass.

. . .

Sakura stood looking down at her teammates, fast asleep, back to back on the floor of the cave. Mirror images of each other, like an inkblot in orange and black. Sasuke’s dark hair spilled onto Naruto’s pillow. They even breathed in perfect sync with one another. If only they could cooperate with each other like this when they were awake. 

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Kakashi asked. “We haven’t got all day.”

“Right.” Sakura nudged Naruto with her toe. “Wake up, you lazy butt. We’ve got to get moving.”

Naruto and Sasuke woke at exactly the same moment and turned to glare venomously at each other.

“Get away from me, you loser.”

“This was my spot first!”

“God, you smell like one of Kakashi-sensei’s summons.”

“Yeah? Well you smell like Chief Toad’s butt!”

“Why would you even know what that smells like?”

“Shut up! Asshole!”

“Idiot!”

“Bitch!” 

“Loser!”

“Good grief.” Sakura turned on her heel and stalked out of the cave onto the puddle-strewn path. She could still hear Naruto and Sasuke arguing, their voices bouncing off the walls of the cave. She found Kakashi-sensei smiling up at the cloudless morning sky.

“Rivalry is a tricky business,” he said absentmindedly.

“I’ve noticed that they are nice to each other when they think no one else is looking,” Sakura confided. “And then they’re right back at each other’s throats.”

“Yep,” Kakashi sighed. “That’s pretty much the way of it.”


	6. If You Had Not Bothered

There was no way that this could end well but Sasuke had already made up his mind. Temari and Kankuro both looked about as haggard and spent as he felt, but there were still two of them and only one of him. He could ask nothing more of Naruto; it was a wonder he was still alive let alone conscious. On the other hand, he probably wouldn’t need to worry about any further attacks from Gaara.

He risked a glance down at Gaara and found him gazing at Naruto with an expression on his face that Sasuke knew all too well. He knew it because he had caught himself looking at Naruto that way more than once now. It was a mixture of awe, bewilderment, admiration and a touch of fear. There was something else there too. Something that Sasuke didn’t know how to name, even though he knew that he felt it too, knew that this emotion was the reason he was now preparing to fight Kankuro and Temari with no chakra and no chance of winning.

He could, he supposed, fall back on the power of the curse mark. He lacked the strength to suppress it again, and maybe Kakashi-sensei had warned him against this, but if he was going to die here anyway, what difference did it make. If it meant that Sakura stayed safe and Naruto could recover, surely it was a worthwhile sacrifice. 

“That’s enough.” The ragged voice was little more than a whisper but Kankuro and Temari both jumped as though he had shouted. “It’s over.”

Kankuro seemed to think about arguing but then picked his brother up and slung him over his shoulder, and with one last wary glance at Sasuke, they leapt away into the trees. 

With what seemed like great effort, Gaara had raised his face to look at Naruto one last time. Sasuke had been struck by what he saw there. The angry, twisted, vile thing that he had fought just moments before was gone. Gaara now just looked defeated, lost, and so very tired. The only sign of life in him was the way he was looking at Naruto as though he were the only thing that existed on earth.

_ Naruto, what did you do to this guy,  _ Sasuke wondered.  _ What could you possibly have said to him? _

Instead of asking, he watched until the Sand ninja were out of sight and then turned towards Naruto with a put-upon sigh. His teammate was out cold, face down in the dirt, smiling.

“Wake up, idiot. We have to move.” He pulled Naruto over his shoulder as Kankuro had done with Gaara, and started back towards the spot where he had left Pakkun and Sakura. Something glittering in the grass caught his eye. A leaf headband. He almost kept walking but he remembered Naruto’s near suicidal attack against Zabuza just to retrieve this stupid headband, remembered the way Naruto touched the headband every time he spoke about Iruka-sensei. Careful not to drop Naruto on his face, he bent to pick it up and put it in his pocket.

Pakkun was still waiting for him next to Sakura’s unconscious form. 

“I can’t carry them both,” Sasuke said. He was struggling even to carry Naruto.

“I’ll look after her,” Pakkun told him. “We’ll meet you in the hospital.” He clamped his teeth around Sakura’s hand and they disappeared. 

It was a very long walk back to the village. Chasing after Gaara, Sasuke had not realized how far they had run. Naruto’s feet dragged against the ground as Sasuke stumbled along. His head lolled from side to side with every step, blood splattering from a wound in the centre of his forehead.

“Hey loser,” Sasuke grunted. “How’d you manage to get hit right in the centre of your face, anyway.”

“Wasn’t hit,” Naruto muttered. “Head butt.”

Sasuke stopped in his tracks. “You headbutted that sand demon?”

“Yeah,” Naruto laughed weakly. “Was awesome.”

“You are unbelievable,” Sasuke told him. It came out softer than he’d intended.

It occurred to Sasuke that if Kankuro had been there to take Gaara home, then Shino had lost his fight. He wondered if there would even be a body to retrieve or if the insects he carried would consume him and leave no trace. He kept walking.

The hospital was in an uproar. Part of the building had been damaged and there had not been enough staff or supplies on hand to cope once the attack started. 

“There are no beds left,” a harried looking medical ninja told Sasuke. “Set him down here, I’ll give him a quick look over.”

Sasuke set Naruto down on the cold, tiled floor of the atrium and propped him up against the wall. The medical ninja ran hands glowing with chakra across Naruto’s body then sighed and turned to Sasuke. 

“Nothing serious, really. A few cuts and bruises, a concussion, chakra exhaustion. Though, I can feel his chakra bouncing back at an extraordinary speed. His wounds just need to be cleaned and bandaged and then he’ll need a lot of rest. We’ll get to him as soon as we can, but it might be a long wait.”

“Just bring me the supplies, I’ll do it myself,” Sasuke commanded. The medical ninja hurried away and returned at once with alcohol wipes, gauze and tape. 

Naruto didn’t so much as flinch as Sasuke wiped the blood off his face and made sure there was no dirt or debris in the wounds.

“Hold still, idiot,” Sasuke hissed as Naruto’s head nodded forwards. Naruto did not respond, his eyes stared through Sasuke, into the far distance. Sasuke tilted Naruto’s head back to lean against the wall and began taping bandages over the cuts on his face. Next, he lifted Naruto’s right hand and started cleaning and wrapping his split knuckles.

“Thanks, Sasuke,” Naruto muttered.

“Shut up,” was all Sasuke could think to say.

“He was just like me,” Naruto whispered.

It crossed Sasuke’s mind to protest but instead he shrugged and said, “Yeah, if you say so.”

“That’s what I would have been if no one had bothered. If no one had ever tried to love me or understand me.”

“Look, I just want to get us out of here as quickly as possible,” Sasuke snapped.

“Thank you, Sasuke,” Naruto said again, his eyes finally focusing on Sasuke’s face. Sasuke knew that Naruto wasn’t thanking him now for the medical care. His throat tightened, his heart stuttered. The only response he could give was to squeeze Naruto’s wrist. 

“Let’s go home.”

Sasuke half carried, half dragged Naruto through the demolished streets of the village, praying that Naruto’s building would still be there. Even at the best of times, the old dump looked like a bad storm might tear it to shreds; an attack by foreign ninja with a three headed snake may have obliterated it entirely. He breathed a sigh of relief when he rounded a corner and the building came into view. A few shuriken stuck out of the walls and some of the ground floor windows were broken, but Naruto’s third floor apartment was untouched. 

Sasuke dumped his teammate unceremoniously onto the narrow bed.

“Glad to see you’re both okay,” a voice said behind him. He jumped and spun around quickly.

“Kakashi-sensei! What are you doing here?”

“Just came to check on you two.” Kakashi shrugged. “Sakura’s going to be fine. I took her home.”

“Good.” Sasuke had nearly forgotten about Sakura in the chaos of the hospital atrium.

“I’m helping out with clean up. You two get some rest. You’ve earned it.” Kakashi jumped out the window and was gone.

Sasuke retrieved Naruto’s sleeping bag from the closet and curled up on the floor beside the bed, so bone weary that even the scuffed wooden boards felt comfortable. 

He pulled the edge of the sleeping bag over his face to block out the afternoon sunlight. “Good night, loser.”

Naruto’s bandaged hand dropped over the edge of the mattress and dangled near his own where it rested on the floor. 


	7. Best Friends

Sasuke had been avoiding Naruto for days. This was all his fault.

Stupid Naruto, with his easy smile and his ridiculous blue eyes. Such an idiot. He was a ramen-slurping, prank-pulling, knuckle-headed idiot with idealistic dreams and an absurd amount of chakra. Sasuke wanted to grab him by the front of his stupid orange jacket and shake him. He wanted to throw him on the ground and. . and. . .he didn’t really know how to finish that thought. He didn’t really want to hurt Naruto. And that made him even angrier. If he could have just punched Naruto right in his stupid face and screamed at him to grow up, that love doesn’t make you stronger, that friends will only hold you back, that these things have no place in the life of an avenger like him, and how dare Naruto make him feel this way, maybe then he would have felt better. 

But he couldn’t do any of that because every time he looked at those big, dumb, summer sky blue eyes, he found himself wanting to believe that friendship could heal old wounds, that people could forge their own destiny, that an orphaned nobody could work hard enough to become Hokage. It even made him want to forget the feeling of Itachi’s fingers clamped around his throat.

And this was why he was keeping his distance. This was why he had been spending even the worst nights alone in his empty house rather than seeking refuge in the tiny apartment littered with ramen containers and laundry that had started to feel more like a home to him than anywhere in the village. He, Sasuke Uchiha, in order to fulfil his purpose, could not have a real home, could not allow himself to have bonds with someone who made it so hard for him to even grasp at the ragged edges of the hate that had once consumed him. He needed to nurture his hate, his anger, his desire for vengeance. 

There was something else too, something that filled his stomach with icy dread every time he thought about it. He wasn’t just angry with Naruto for making him feel hopeful, for making him forget his purpose in this life. He  _ cared  _ about Naruto. Perhaps more deeply than he had cared about anyone since his parents had been killed. Naruto was no longer just his teammate, or a comrade. The way he had felt when he had learned that Itachi was looking for Naruto had shown him that. It had all been so clear during that headlong, panicked dash to get to him first. 

Naruto had become something else to him.

His best friend.

That horrible thing that Itachi had told him about. A thing he had been sure he would never have.

He heard them coming long before he saw them, Naruto’s ridiculously loud, carefree voice drifting down the street, telling Sakura some story. Sasuke could picture her rolling her eyes, trying to act mature by pretending that whatever he was saying wasn’t funny. He heard Naruto laugh; a bubbling, joyful sound that always set his nerves on edge. The part of him that the avenger within him was trying to kill wanted to get up and run towards that sound, to follow it, hold onto it. 

So instead, he slunk back into the shadows and disappeared, darkness into darkness. Naruto and Sakura walked past the place he had been sitting and never knew that he had been there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you've enjoyed my work, and thank you for all the lovely comments! If you want, you can come visit me on tumblr, @lilac-writes. I'm new there so it would be nice if you dropped in to say hi!


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